Memphian pedals on toward greatest challenge

Kim Halyak and husband Bill Schosser ride laps around the Fairgrounds in Memphis as they train for the RAGBRAI, The (Des Moines) Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, an annual seven-day bicycle ride across the state. Halyak, who has cerebral palsy, is an avid bike rider.

Halyak discovered her recumbent tricycle while on vacation in Michigan. The stable design has allowed her to ride along trails in Memphis and in other states.

For much of her life, Kim Halyak felt that she had missed out on one of the joys of living. The 56-year-old Memphian, a special-education teacher, was born with a mild form of cerebral palsy that affected her gait and kept her from an activity that captured her imagination as a child — riding a bicycle.

Everything changed in June 2010, when Halyak and her husband, Bill Schosser, made a life-altering discovery while on vacation in Michigan. What they found was a super-stable recumbent tricycle, which they didn't know existed but was just what Halyak needed.

Back in Memphis, they searched for similar vehicles, finally locating a couple of used tricycles in Huntsville, Ala., and started on a new phase in their lives. "I was in seventh heaven," Halyak says. "I couldn't stop riding."

The two have progressed to the point that in July they will cover two segments of an annual ride across Iowa. Although their longest ride in one day to this point has been 28 miles, they plan to ride 50 miles from Perry, Iowa, to Des Moines on July 22, then 52 miles from Des Moines to Knoxville, Iowa, the following day.

If all goes well, they will sign up for the 2014 RAGBRAI — the (Des Moines) Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. The seven-day event is a ride, not a race, with different courses every year. On average, those who traverse the state cover 468 miles. Tricycles are permitted.

Halyak says she is nervous about the new challenge but can't wait to join thousands of other riders for what she calls "some mass insanity." She worried that her usual slow pace might present a problem until she was told, "There will be plenty of people slower than you."

To help them prepare for the Iowa adventure, the couple plan to ride a segment of the one-day, 100-mile Tour de Corn, which starts and ends in East Prairie, Mo., — about 20 miles southeast of Sikeston, Mo. — on June 23.

With her newfound freedom to ride, Halyak has come a long way from her beginnings in Pittsburgh, Pa., where she knew early in life that "something was wrong." She does not, however, consider herself disabled and has not let the condition stop her from being active. Even before discovering the tricycle — she and Schosser have a pair of TerraTrike Rovers — Halyak walked the Great Wall of China and traveled to many other destinations that required physical stamina.

"I'm fortunate," she says, "that the cerebral palsy did not affect my mind. It could have been way more severe."

After graduating from high school, Halyak earned a bachelor's degree in special education from California University of Pennsylvania, in the Pittsburgh area. She worked for a time in Washington in the law library of the U.S. Supreme Court, moving to Savannah, Ga., when she married for the first time in 1980. When her then-husband got a job at FedEx, Halyak moved to Memphis. She married Schosser, a computer expert for FedEx, in 2001. She has been in special education for 31 years and now teaches at Carver High School.

Halyak recalls hating sports as a child, although swimming and bike riding appealed to her. She could not ride, however, because her condition affected her balance.

Halyak says she was never athletic, but the cerebral palsy was not a big factor in her life, in part because her parents did not treat her differently because of it. "It was never really an issue," she says. "It just was."

Schosser says the key to his wife's success with the tricycle is its stability, which translates to safety. "The tricycles," he says, "are very popular with baby boomers because they won't fall over." The seats are more like regular chairs, he notes, so the rider's rear end doesn't hurt after a ride.

Once Halyak realized that there was a way for her to ride, Schosser says, "she was like a kid on Christmas morning. She was doing something she could never, ever do before."

After acquiring the tricycles, Halyak began cycling regularly, although at first she could do only 2 miles at a time. There were breakthroughs, however. "One day," she recalls, "I came home from a ride and realized I had done 7 miles."

A big step for her was the Midnight Classic, a 17-mile ride that starts at Poplar Plaza. She and Schosser put that one in the books two months after acquiring the tricycles. They started riding the Shelby Farms Greenline and any other similar paths they encountered in their travels, including the iconic Silver Comet Trail, a 61-mile-long paved path that starts near Atlanta.